A One Mann’s Movies review of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” (2021).
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
On our return home from seeing this Ghostbusters sequel, “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”, the illustrious Mrs Movie Man and I realised that none of our grown-up kids was alive when the original Ivan Reitman film – starring Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson and Sigourney Weaver – was released.
Now, 37 years later, with his son Jason Reitman at the helm, and after the perceived flop of the 2016 all-female effort (“Ghostbusters“), comes another attempt.
Plot Summary:
Callie (Carrie Coon) is evicted from her home. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) her eccentric estranged father has just died, and his farmhouse in Summerville, Oklahoma is empty. She travels there with her two kids: the geeky young scientist Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and the hormonally-fuelled teen Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). But all is not as it should be in the sleepy backwater since there are regular daily earthquakes emanating from a spooky mine with a sinister reputation.
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd.
Directed by: Jason Reitman.
Written by: Gil Kenan and Jason Reitman. (Based on the 1984 film by Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd).
“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” Review:
Positives:
- It gets a 10/10 for nostalgia. The film is chock full of Easter eggs from the original films (the 2016 attempt is airbrushed from history!), and there’s a nice cameo early on that sets the tone.
- The kid actors all do a pretty good job here, expecially Mckenna Grace as Phoebe who comprehensively knocks it out of the park as the geeky teen.
- The mini-Stay-Pufts make no sense whatsoever in the context of either the original movie or this one: but they are still quite hilarious as Minion-like wreakers of havoc. The kids in particular will love these sequences.
- The finale of the movie is epic, and a ‘movie moment’ for 2021. (I inexplicably got something in my eye at one point.)
- The special effects are wisely very reminiscent of the original movie (still impressive after nearly 40 years). They haven’t gone for the full-CGI approach to ‘improve them’.
Negatives:
- The sequel leans very heavily on the plot points for the original movie. Some aspects of the story feel like a straight (and lazy) re-tread of the 1984 film.
- I really didn’t think the script was funny enough. It was smile-worthy, a dozen or so times, but nothing raised an actual laugh with me.
- I found the score by Ron Simonsen really tiresome. It trots out Elmer Bernstein‘s original jaunty “Ghostbusters” incidental theme far too readily, sometimes when it just doesn’t fit. And there’s a moment (when the teen-party are riding up to the mine) when the background rock track is played together with incidental music at a completely different tempo. That really set my teeth on edge, like nails down a blackboard. Just plain sloppy sound mixing.
- It should be a CARDINAL RULE of movie-making that Paul Rudd should never, EVER be put into a movie with a character called Phoebe. It’s like the movie equivalent of “crossing the streams”!
“Monkeys“?
There’s a special moment as the credits start. A “With <<Actor Name>>” credit appears, and you think “WHAT??? WAIT A MINUTE??? WHO???”. Then we go into a mid-credit monkey that really made me smile!
As I was with the illustrious Mrs Movie Man (who will get very grumpy if forced to sit through interminable credits!) I left after the mid-credit monkey. But there is apparently another good one at the end of the credits too (which I can’t go into as it would involve spoilers).
Summary Thoughts on “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”
Like Earth in the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”, this movie is “mostly harmless”. Kids who’ve had the original two films foisted on them by dewy-eyed parents/grandparents of a certain age will no doubt love this one, focusing as it does on more of a teen demographic that they can relate to. And it’s perfectly watchable. But it really didn’t set my movie world on fire the way that I hoped it might. (That’s despite my expectations being set pretty low by the – I thought – pretty uninspiring trailer).
Sometimes nostalgia alone won’t make a movie memorable.
Trailer for Summary Thoughts on “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ua10EMbSg .
